How to handle a particularly sticky topic in the office without ruining your professional reputation

It can be tough, especially during an election season as
polarizing as this one, to stay silent about your personal
presidential preferences in the workplace.

In fact, you spend so much time at work that you may have built
up a chummy relationship with your coworkers and bosses, which
makes you feel entitled to express your opinions.

But you're walking a fine line when you bring politics into the
workplace.

As a general rule of thumb, it's probably best to avoid talking
about politics on company time for a couple key reasons:

1. You're not doing your best work when you're more focused
on defending your political stances

Passionate discussions are to be expected in the workplace, but
they should really be focused on work-related issues.

At the end of the day, you're there to do work, and
arguments about whose candidate is better can be distracting to
both you and your coworkers.

2. As an employee expressing yourself at work, you
have less protections than you'd think — and if your boss doesn't
like what they hear, you could get fired for it

First of all, your company may have rules specifically
prohibiting political paraphernalia or using social media to
express your political affiliations, so it's always good to get
acquainted with your employee handbook.

And unless you signed some sort of contract that says otherwise,
it's very likely you're an at-will employee. This means that your
boss can fire you whenever they want without having to establish
just cause.

Of course, there are labor laws that exist in this country to
protect people against adverse employment actions due to
discrimination. So if your boss fires you, for example, simply
because you're a woman, that's wrongful termination, and you
could sue them for that.

But very few laws exist that truly protect private sector
employees against getting fired for expressing their political
affiliation.
There are a handful of states like New
York and California
that have laws that offer protections for political affiliation,
but even some of those are fairly limited.

What's more, talking heatedly about politics at work could be
construed as creating a hostile work environment, and people
could file a harassment complaint against you for that.

At the end of the day, if all your politics talk could be
construed as interfering with your productivity, that could
be just cause for termination.

What to do when you can't avoid the politics talk

If people are talking politics around you and you start feeling
yourself getting heated, the best thing you can do is take a
break and remove yourself from the discussion if you can. If
there's talk going on all around you, put on some headphones and
get back to what you were doing.

And if you do find yourself talking about politics at work, then
there are a few good guidelines to follow. Essentially, you want
to treat the discussion like any other difficult workplace
conversation:

Don't think of it as an opportunity to change the other
person's mind, because you likely won't.

Treat it as an opportunity to understand the other person
more. Ask questions and try to learn where the other
person is coming from, keep an open mind, and try not to take
criticisms of your candidate as personal attacks.

Be respectful! This means no personal attacks,
keep it civil, keep it calm, and avoid "you" statements,
especially ones like, "You people are a bunch of idiots."

Avoid the really sticky issues. Abortion, gay
marriage, and sexual harassment are all really important topics,
but they're too provocative for "water-cooler" talk.

Ultimately, try to find common ground. You
could say something like, "I disagree with this candidate's
parental leave policies, but I agree that parents in this country
need more support, and I'm glad that's a real concern for both
candidates."

Give yourself a time limit — however long
you think is appropriate to take a break at work, that's how long
you should allow the conversation to go on. Once the conversation
passes the ten minute mark, tell your colleague, "I think we can
agree to disagree on a few things. Let's get back to what we're
here to do."

It may seem hard to keep your political opinion to yourself,
especially if you disagree heartily with someone else'
presidential pick, but it's important to remeber that, at the end
of your day, it's not your job to defend your candidate, and
you're at work to do your job.